Flipper is a Donzi Fan

[Fish boy]

Snuck out for a little while this afternoon to put some breaking hours on the new motor. Stopped for a minute to do something and up came two dolphin. THey swam around the boat a couple of times checking it out, and then swam off.

Wish I would have had my digital camera, but did manage to get a picture with my phone (as well as several of the water showing where the dolphin was when I tried to take the picture-doh!)

[BUIZILLA]

they were prolly just as shocked as your were that there wasn't a tow rope visible..

anonymous

[boxy]

Nice shot Fish, nice day.
I got an excited call from my two little girls this morning, they are with my wife at my folk's place in Fort Myers, they were out in my Dad's CC off of Fort Myers Beach, and the dolphins were swimming all around the boat.
Are the sightings more common this winter, or is this normal ?

[Fish boy]

Boxy, depending on where you are, sightings are pretty normal. There are very young dolphins that feed in the water behind my place nearly every morning... at least that is the line I use on animal loving chicks the night before LOL ;)

Seriously, it is not that uncommon to see one if you keep a good look out, but having them come up to the boat is pretty rare. The only way I have been able to get them to stay around the boat in the past is to give the boat enough throttle to get it to just before going on a plane (when it puts out large wake). The dolphins love to surf in this and if you find the right speed, you can keep them in the wake for a while.

I have also seen them play in the wake pushed from the bow of large vessels, but since I do not have one, I have to do the big wave thing.

[ChromeGorilla]

When I was on the submarine and we ran on the surface, we threw a ginormous bow wake. The dolphins would play for 30 mins at a pop. I'll have to scan some pics I took from the bridge. It was always a cool sight.

Also, I see them everytime I boat on the ICW.

[mattyboy]

I hear they are the new advanced recon team for sea tow and they were assigned to track you to drum up business :) ;) :) ( sorry that was uncalled for just a lil payback for the tampa bay lightning thingy ;) )
I would never get my daughter off the boat if that happened when she was with me , she loves dolphins, we see them in schools past the breakers down on the jersey shore and she wants to swim out to them :eek:
that must be pretty cool to see that close

[McGary911]

Believe it or not, we see dolphin in Jersey quite a bit too. Usually when they pop up, ill idle about 50 feet inshore from them....could follow them for miles. When i was in college, i was was a beach patrol in Mantoloking NJ. Unfortunately part of my job was shooing surfers from places that weren't designated surfers' beaches. One day i pulled up my quad to some surfers, and to their surprise, rather than calling them in, i directed them out about another 70 feet or so. They were confused until they found themselves in the middle of a huge school of dolphin. They told me it was cool as hell to be in the middle of that school.